


Inside the Outsider

by ouroboros



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M, Masturbation, Missing Scene, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7820788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouroboros/pseuds/ouroboros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It is little things like that that make this okay. Small rules, steps to follow: Pants staying buttoned, Neil’s hands where he can see them, no words but “Yes or no.” And, now, door locked. Check.</i><br/> </p><p>(Andrew looks back on the first time he does more than kiss Neil)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside the Outsider

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finkpishnets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/gifts).



> The missing scene I was most curious about from this series was a look into Andrew's mind after he locks himself up in the bathroom after giving Neil a handjob for the first time, so I loved that you requested a missing scene. I also love thinking about what they'd be like as they grow/figure more about themselves out together, so I tossed some of that in, too.

Neil Josten did not save Andrew Minyard. Andrew Minyard did not save Neil Josten. Andrew can’t think of it that way. Theirs is not a child’s story and they did not emerge unscathed. Plus, he rationalizes, they are both capable people, and without each other, they would have found a way to do something, to fight with their teeth and fists and knives and minds, and either live or die (probably die) as themselves. Andrew wants to believe that this is true. 

But when he wakes up and Neil is there, his face slack and relaxed in sleep even with the tense lines of scar tissue on his cheeks, he can’t help but be pleased, and a little disbelieving, that this path is the one their lives took. 

Andrew doesn’t normally do this--the idea of watching someone sleep is too romantically fanciful and useless. Normally he just gets up and makes himself food, or smokes, or thinks. But right now he’s still tired, muscles sore from their game the night before. Plus, he does what he wants, so lay there it is. And it isn’t so much watching Neil sleep as it is taking stock of him. 

He props himself up on an elbow and hovers his hand over the scars on Neil’s face, counting. They’re all as familiar as his own skin to him, now, but noticing each and remembering why they exist is a calm point of focus for him. 

He thinks about the first time he kissed Neil, and he counts: one, two, three, four, four and a half, really, because these two blend into one. He thinks about the first time he let Neil put a hand on him, in his hair. Five, six. He remembers the first time he did more than kiss Neil, pinning his wrists to the wall above him, jerking the pleasure from him roughly, hands tight, teeth sharp, heart as closed as possible. It was almost a year ago, and it had felt like enough, at the time.

~~~

After, Andrew shuts the bathroom door deliberately and leans the small weight of his body against it. He takes time to twist the lock, even though he knows Neil won’t try to follow him, and no one else is around.

It is little things like that that make this okay. Small rules, steps to follow: Pants staying buttoned, Neil’s hands where he can see them, no words but “Yes or no.” And, now, door locked. Check.

He exhales and feels a little better. The definition of “good” is a sliding scale all the way into hell, really, and he lost what it means to feel that way so long ago that he isn’t sure what it even looks like, but “better”, at least, is a thing he has come to terms with, in a distant sort of way. And now, with his heart rate gathering under his control instead of at the whim of Neil’s patient, respectful hands, it’s a word that makes sense.

His reflection in the mirror is a mess. His hair is sticking up at every angle, thanks to Neil having to direct every part of his attention to Andrew’s scalp. His lips are bitten plump and red, and his neck has a line of teeth marks up it. Tilting his head, he watches himself press his thumb into where a bruise is likely going to form, and hisses, his eyelids fluttering closed. He’s so hard he can barely stand it.

If he lays it out in a process of motion in his mind, it seems like going further with Neil could be easy: How hard is it to undo a button? How simple is the motion of pulling his shirt above his head? How little effort would be involved in letting Neil--

And that’s where the line gets blurred. Anyone’s hands on him, no matter if they’re after a punch or a caress, is unacceptable. That has been the rule, and it has worked. They’d both feel the same sort of terrible.

Except it hadn’t been terrible, just a few minutes before. Neil had been responsive under Andrew’s deliberately steady hands. So much so that it had led Andrew to wonder what it would be like if it were switched.

Neil is infuriating in every possible way, but the thing that is probably the worst is his ability to let himself go in ways that feel unfathomable. Neil is by many counts just as measured and careful as Andrew is. It’s one of the things that makes him trustworthy. But there is an element of Neil’s unpredictability that is different than Andrew’s easily anticipated bouts of smiling rage. Neil has learned, despite himself, to allow himself happiness.

Andrew grimaces and grips the edges of the sink. He doesn’t know what makes him angrier: The fact that Neil has let his guard down enough around Andrew to let himself be taken up by it, or the fact that he can’t do the same in return.

When Andrew is with Neil, there is this stupid fucking _thing_ where he can’t decide if he wants to gut him and laugh, or if he wants to tackle him, mouth first, and not stop until he’s expended every ounce of energy left in his shitty bird bones, until can fall asleep on top of Neil, his brain finally quiet. He can’t seem to find a balance between these desires, himself, but Neil’s hands always stay hovering an inch away from his skin, the ghost of heat on him. It is the perfect, patient medium. Andrew hates Neil even more for somehow knowing he needs it.

When Andrew is alone, like now, it isn’t any less infuriating, but it is, at least, easier. He doesn’t need to remember to hold back, because there is no one to hurt here but himself, and he has always been the simplest casualty.

And so, behind the safety of a locked door, his hand pauses on his zipper for only a moment before he makes a move. He doesn’t pull his pants all the way down, but he tugs at them enough to free his dick. He licks his hand twice (enough to make it work, not enough to make it easy) and wraps it around himself. 

His reflection in the mirror cuts off just above the jut of his hips, so he can see the way his forearm muscles shift as he pumps, but nothing lower. Instead, he locks eyes with himself and bares his teeth. This is what Neil would see, if he were here. This is what Neil wants, somehow, for some fucking stupid reason Andrew won’t let himself think through, yet.

Touching himself is part punishment and part reprieve. It feels good, but his brand of fantasizing is fraught with mental landmines that feel just as good to sidestep as they do to jump right on, so he works at the line between the fierce edge of control and the thrill at the loss of it. 

Andrew squeezes hard and thinks about Neil. He bites down hard on his lower lip and blood beads up under his teeth, running slow and gratifying down his chin. The pain is a focal point, the pleasure a means to an end. He thinks about Neil like he had been just minutes before, hands pinned safe above his head, shivering and malleable in Andrew’s grip. He thinks about what it would be like if they weren’t. If those hands were on Andrew’s chest instead, pinching a nipple. Or around Andrew’s throat, for a change of pace. His own hand follows that path, twisting, squeezing. 

It feels so inconveniently good, and Andrew feels his mental barriers loosening more with each ragged breath. Everything he has sworn he doesn’t want, every red, torn image that he’s been avoiding rises up in his mind and against his fingertips. The image shifts each second, like too long in one fantasy would make it too real, too possible. Neil under him, around him, inside him. Andrew riding him, Andrew tying him up and watching him writhe. Neil calling out how much he likes it, how much he wants, and Andrew letting himself give it to him, their eyes burning bright into each other.

When he comes, he slams his head against the wall and feels the shake of it in his ears and in his teeth. He knows it is loud, but he also knows that Neil is probably aware of what he’s doing in there. He hopes it makes him hard again. Purposefully ignoring that later will make him feel a little better, at least. 

He does not allow himself time to relax, after. Cleaning up is mechanical, quick, simple. He zips, stands, and turns on the faucet. 

For a person who does not like to want things, Andrew has a long list banging around in his brain, and it is all of it Neil Josten’s fault. “You’re spending all your energy on not wanting anything,” he’d said once. Andrew remembers this, and grimaces at his reflection. Neil, this _thing_ with him, whatever it is, isn’t going to fix anything, Andrew knows it. It might be a prettier way to burn himself down, though, if he is careful.

His hands shake as he washes them clean, but by the time Neil comes back into the bedroom, Andrew has left the bathroom and is leaning, in enforced calm, against the fridge. Hands and heartbeat steady. 

~~~

 

Andrew thinks about the first time he allowed Neil to touch his shoulders, and he pulls the sheet down a bit to count Neil’s scars there. Seven, eight, nine, ten. He thought he’d combust trying to contain his shivering, then, not wanting Neil to know what it was doing to him. 

Down further comes the sheet, and eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, for the upper chest. The first time he let Neil touch him there, he let Neil know how much he liked it, let himself gasp, let himself shake. And that was new for them, too. But that’s as far as it’s gone between them. As far as he’s let himself let it go. So he stops counting there, and his thoughts shift to his own scars. Those are less fun to count. And for the most part, less visible. 

He rolls his shoulders and considers how they’ve faded even more in the last year. His gaze falls back to Neil. Neil, who is stupid and bull-headed and obnoxious. Neil, who, with Andrew, can also be slow, and careful, and calm. Infuriatingly so. Neil isn’t Andrew’s answer, not his fairy tale cure-all happy ending, because that is not something that exists. But he is Andrew’s _something_. A sharp surge of protectiveness over that knowledge shakes through Andrew, and his eyelids flutter closed. He makes a decision. 

He doesn’t act immediately, instead turning it over in his head a few more times, weighing it. He doesn’t actually _want_ most of the fantasies he’s thought about. But he is ready for something. Some new rules, on his terms.

When he is bored with running his fingers lightly just barely above the raised and ruined skin along Neil’s arms, he presses a nail into the curve of his throat. The calm on Neil’s face recalibrates to fierce alert, his eyes darting to doors, windows--weak points in their bedroom--then settling on Andrew, relaxing into something gross and warm.

“Still quick.” Andrew smiles. “Could be quicker.”

Neil shifts his weight on the bed, closer. “I’ve got fewer things to watch out for, now.” His voice is rough with sleep.

Andrew bares his teeth in half-threat, and Neil laughs. He reaches up to stop just short of Andrew’s shoulder, fingers poised and patient, the faintest pressure on the hem of his sleeve. They don’t always verbalize the question anymore, but it’s always still there in a pause, in a nod. 

Andrew breathes in deep and takes Neil’s hand in his. He brings it down quickly, under the covers, under his shirt, and presses it against the vulnerable skin of his belly, just above the wasitband of his pajamas.

Neil sucks in a sharp breath, and Andrew wonders if he can feel the rabbit heartbeat running in the artery by his hipbone. His eyes are so wide, his hand is so warm. They stay frozen like that for a moment, and then Neil’s fingers twitch; a fraction of an inch of movement lower. 

“Yes or no?” Neil finally finds his voice, treading the known pathway of communication for these situations, though it’s never been quite like this. His voice is shaky, and he asks it like he is asking himself, not just Andrew. 

Andrew blinks slow. Neil is staring him down, trying to steady his own breathing. It makes him feel better, knowing that Neil is nervous like this. Andrew can be the calmer one; more in control.

He grips hard at the back of Neil’s neck and guides him in for a kiss. When he pulls back to answer, it is not the concession he once thought it would be. It is a step. A choice. A thing he is doing for himself. When he speaks, his voice is clear and his eyes are open.

**Author's Note:**

> People are connecting  
> Don't know what to say  
> I'm good at protecting  
> What they want to take
> 
> Spilt the milk at breakfast  
> Hit me double hard  
> And I grinned at you softly  
> Because I'm a fucking wild card
> 
> These people are weird in here  
> And they're giving me the fear  
> Just because you know my name  
> Doesn't mean you know my game
> 
> I look myself in the face  
> And whisper "I'm in the wrong place"  
> Is there more to lose than gain  
> If I go on my own again? (On my own again)
> 
> Inside the outsider (on my own again)  
> -[The Outsider, by Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPjCP1GxcKU)
> 
>  
> 
> (Feedback makes the world go round<3)
> 
> Also this fic has been getting some attention the past few days (as of 6/11/17), which is a surprise, but also makes me super happy! If it's on a rec list or something, can someone link me? I wanna see ;_;


End file.
